It’s been a bad week, brought on by a Year of Living Dangerously, for Mel Gibson. He might have reconsidered unleashing a verbal Apocalyptoon former lover and mother to his daughter Oksana Grigorievaif he’d realized he was being taped.

I’m sure he regards the release of the tapes as a Conspiracy Theory against him—which would be the appropriate reaction of a narcissist. (David Brooks recently described Gibson as such in a New York Times editorial.) Whatever the diagnosis for Gibson’s maniacal behavior, it’s clear he doesn’t know What Women Want. The Signsare everywhere that his career might at last suffer from this latest round of abhorrent behavior. It’s conceivable that an actor who’s young and dysfunctional might spend some time in jail over a DUI and see her acting career survive—but a grown man with domestic abuse issues bent solely on Paybackmight want to choose another line of work. Or retire.